Mary Sue Coleman

Today's announcement is a milestone for both the University of Michigan and for 
Stanford University.  The National Science Foundation has awarded us 7.6 million 
dollars to fund the American National Election Studies, to study the causes of 
voter participation and candidate choice in the 2008 US presidential election.  
The ANES was created by U M’s Institute for Social Research in 1952 and has 
conducted the gold standard of national surveys every two years since then to 
equip scholars around the world to study American voting behavior and election 
outcomes.

We're extremely proud of the important contributions that the programs made over 
the past 50 plus years.  Next year will mark the first time that the project will 
be co-directed by the ISR and a partner, Stanford University's Institute for 
Research and the Social Sciences.  Here in Ann Arbor we're excited to be 
collaborating with such a respectable program.  The NSF grant more than doubles 
the financial support we received back in 2002 to 2005.  This increase and the 
decision to award it to the two Universities is the result of two years of 
workshops held by NSF to evaluate the studies scientific value and innovative 
directions for its future.  NSF's ringing endorsement of the ANES project is a 
wonderful recognition of fifty years of important scholarship by hundreds of social 
scientists studying elections.  I know that we can expect exceptional results in 
the upcoming years because of the substantial expansion of disciplines and because 
of the remarkable studies and projects that are being planned.  We're in extremely 
good hands at Michigan under the leadership of ISR Director James Jackson, and 
Principal Investigator Arthur Lupia at ISR and our political science department.

I now would like to invite my friend and colleague at Stanford University, President 
James Hennessy to say a few words.